Two UConn Health doctors have received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study possible treatments for aging human tissue that malfunctions.

Geneticist Se-Jin Lee, who also is affiliated with the Jackson Laboratory in Farmington, and Emily Germain-Lee, a pediatric endocrinologist also with the Connecticut Children's Medical Center, are working together on the four-year research project, which examines the effect of aging on skeletal muscle tissue.

The outcome of the research could help determine future therapeutic strategies for manipulating, or regulating certain protein molecules that might help protect the elderly, whose aging tissue starts to fail and not function normally, the doctors say.